


Diplomatic Silence

by Britpacker



Series: Blue Sky Thinking [2]
Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-13
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2018-08-15 17:10:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8065003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britpacker/pseuds/Britpacker
Summary: Least said, soonest mended, or so the saying goes.  Hoshi's not sure about that.  A sequel to "Out Of The Blue Sky".





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Kylie Lee, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Warp 5 Complex](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Warp_5_Complex), the software of which ceased to be maintained and created a security hazard. To make future maintenance and archive growth easier, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but I may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Warp 5 Complex collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Warp5Complex).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** It seemed to me Malcolm wouldn’t be the only one with issues following the events of “Out Of The Blue Sky. The relationship’s still T/R of course, but this is more a Malcolm/Hoshi friendship fic.

He sat in the centre of the mess hall, the chaos of a busy midday service washing over him unheeded. Time had lost its meaning, the shrill babble of forty hungry shipmates woven into a heavy woollen blanket of sound that wound around him, all individuality dissolved. Range, trajectory, power output... the calculations clicked through his brain at warp speed, a needle-sharp point of focus around which everything else could fade away.

It took two attempts before her shy cough breached his personalised force fields. Reed's dark head jerked back, the smallest of furrows forming between his eyebrows as grey eyes collided with darkest brown. 

"Afternoon, Ensign," he said pleasantly

"Is this seat taken, Lieutenant?" Hoshi Sato's words seemed to leak from the corner of her mouth, her glance dropping away from his as if she were - ludicrous as it seemed - afraid of him. Malcolm tried his friendliest smile.

And promptly regretted wasting it on thin air. "It is if you'd like to use it," he offered, snatching away his precious PADD before the pretty Japanese could clatter her tray down atop its delicate screen. "What's the matter, Hoshi?"

"Body language that obvious?" she asked.

"I'm not completely oblivious!"

"No." Few people were more observant, however hard they tried to mask it. "I'm trying to hide," the linguist announced baldly. "I was hoping that invisibility cloak of yours could be extended my way?"

His legendary ability to blend into the background probably wasn't helped by a sharp bark of laughter but, intrigued by the way his bubbly friend was shrinking into herself, Malcolm didn't much care. "I haven't noticed any neon signs over your head, if that's what you're worrying about," he said, deliberately neutral.

Her spoon clanged into the deep base of her bowl, droplets of hot chicken soup splashing over the rim. Ever cautious, he shifted his PADD onto his lap. "Nobody's _said_ anything," Hoshi muttered to the floor. "They're all being so damned normal around me! Even Travis..."

He sat back, head cocked and arms crossed: his classic inquiring posture that raised a smile even against her will. "Would you prefer them all to grin behind their hands or point?" he asked mildly.

"Maybe." Chef's finest broth was pushed aside as if it were stagnant pond water. "Everybody _saw_ me, Malcolm. They all _know_ what Phlox did to snap me out of it. I'm so fucking embarrassed!"

"Does it help to know you're not the only one? Bloody hell, Phlox had every sensor on board trained on Trip and I." In the horror of remembering his voice rose over the lunchtime din, and only her toecap connecting with his ankle brought Malcolm back to the moment. "Sorry. That wasn't helping with the whole invisibility thing, was it?"

"No. Are they being careful with you too?"

"Tiptoeing on eggshells," the armoury officer confirmed cheerfully. "It's better than the alternative."

"Is it?" Glossed lips pursing, Hoshi considered her reticent friend for a moment, visibly self-censoring before she risked the multi-billion dollar question. "Wouldn't you like them to just _say_ something? Everybody's being so damn understanding... it doesn't feel _right_."

"Would it help get over the shame if Travis actually mentioned your grabbing his balls?"

Blushes tore up both their throats. "Now you mention it - no," Hoshi conceded. 

"Good girl." He favoured her with a surprisingly gentle version of his customary half-smile, but her inward cringe was still accompanied by another violent blush. "If they didn't love you they'd be sniggering; conversations would stop every time you entered a room. They're _trying_ to be kind by pretending nothing happened."

"I guess." Cocooned in her own humiliation, Hoshi hadn't stopped to ponder what her crewmates might be going through on her account. "You're saying the problem's with me, not them, right?"

"Without the assistance of the UT!" Reed applauded teasingly as he leaned over the table, concealing the urgency of his words in an apparent fascination with the contents of her tray. "We're mortified. They know it. Short of embarrassing everyone further by bashing us on the back and shouting _"It's okay, we understand!"_ ignoring the whole bloody mess is the most obvious way they have of showing it."

It probably did nothing to make them less noticeable, but that couldn't be helped. Quickly, shyly, Hoshi Sato bobbed up to plant a kiss on the peak of her superior officer's nearside cheekbone. "When did you get so wise?" she muttered.

Faint colour crested that enviable bone structure. "When Trip bawled me out over being bloody stupid, of course. You didn't really think I'd worked all that out for myself, did you?"

"Actually, yes."

"Thanks for the compliment." He was, she discovered, genuinely touched. "But I'm not that sensible and I was all wrapped up in my embarrassment too. As for poor Fisher... I'm not sure what's worse, being studied ravishing one's lover by a professional busybody or having a completely unsuspecting bystander trip over one's naked corpse."

"Or having the whole bridge crew see you writhing around with a hand in your crotch on duty, rubbing up against anything male before trying to get into the pilot's pants?"

Reed considered for a moment. "Or that," he conceded amiably. "I _did_ toy with the idea of apologising to my duty crew for hobbling around the armoury waving a whopper before getting dragged through the department mauling my boyfriend, but I rather thought I'd caused enough embarrassment for one mission."

"They probably got a kick out of it anyway." 

"Yes," Malcolm agreed quietly. "There is that. Least said, soonest mended on all sides, don't you think?"

"I guess." She was, Sato considered, still mortified; but at least now she knew she wasn't suffering alone.

And that the unfortunate victim of her uncontrollable lusts might be twice as embarrassed as she was. "Thanks, Malcolm," she whispered.

His brow furrowed, the question already shaping his mouth before the mess door whizzed open behind her back. "Travis!" he called, shooting his companion a look that kept her pinned against her better judgement to her seat. 

"Hey, Lieutenant." Snatching the first item he could reach from the service bar, Ensign Mayweather swayed between the crowds toward them. Feeling her face start to burn, Hoshi grabbed her cooling soup and began to twirl the spoon uselessly through the few floating noodles. "Um, the Captain wants to see you right off lunch, Malcolm. Something about the upgrades you're proposing?"

"Ah, good. Excellent." Haste made him clumsy, PADD clattering off his lap with a clang that turned way too many heads their way. "Feel free to take my seat, Ensign. No time like the present, eh?"

"There's no need..." The boomer's deep voice soared to a passable falsetto. Despite her humiliation, Hoshi had to smother a snicker.

"Bad form to keep the boss waiting, Travis, you should know that by now." Almost pushing the younger man into his chair Reed snatched his belongings, clattered his cutlery back onto his tray and fled. Despite the hubbub around them, the clear trill of Hoshi's careful "So..." rang through his head like the chimes of Big Ben.

He risked a peek back as he reached the open doors, relieved to see them both still seated, one stirring her soup, the other crumbling his toasted sandwich, his lips moving earnestly. The linguist's cheek was warmed by another of those constant blushes, her head dipped; but she was almost smiling, and the stiff set of her shoulders was palpably softening. _Best thing for them, having to talk in a crowd. Difficult to bolt, however embarrassed they are._

He was so wrapped up in how well he had manipulated an opportunity he didn't look where he was going. Right up to the moment he crashed heavily into a broad chest adorned with the three polished pips of a full commander's rank. "Easy, tiger," a familiar voice exclaimed before strong hands stained with coolant set the giddy Englishman back on his feet. "What's your rush, Lieutenant?"

The formality was one he had requested, Reed knew. Yet for the life of him, he couldn't remember why.

"Fleeing the scene of the crime; or my good deed for the day. I'm not quite sure which yet," he said, the rush catching him all over again at the sight of that special sparkle in his lover's eyes. "It's about time those two talked," he added, jerking his head back toward the middle of the dining hall. 

When full, well-formed lips turned up into an easy grin he knew his message was understood. "Yeah, folks are startin' to notice how Hoshi disappears every time he walks into the room," Tucker acknowledged, easing the smaller man aside from the main walkway with the brush of a hand. Malcolm smiled.

"Exactly. I've given her the full benefit of your advice; now she has the opportunity to follow it."

Trip glanced over the dark head in time to catch a glimpse through the closing doors. "Looks like she's doin' just that," he approved, swaying into the lieutenant's personal space to grant a couple of scurrying crewmen passage out of the hall. Reed grinned.

"She'll thank us for it one day," he said confidently. Tucker gaped.

"Us?" He queried. "What did I do?"

"Gave me the words, of course." It had been three days since their shift patterns had diverged and as he stood close to his lover, letting the early afternoon traffic slip by, Malcolm could feel the inconvenient yearning he had repressed far too long start to swell and rise. "When do out shifts align again?"

"Saturday afternoon." 

The wistfulness in the words broke him. Heedless of their surroundings Malcolm stretched up to plant a kiss on his astonished mate's mouth, the merest flicker of a glance reassurance enough that nobody had stopped to stare. "I'm looking forward to it already," he purred as he stepped away, thrilled by the look of frank shock that graced those lovely level features. "Must dash - the Captain wants a chat about my upgrade proposals. See you later, love."

Still reeling from his unintended boldness the Englishman sauntered away into the melee, for once powerless to click straight into business mode. 

He'd kissed Trip in public and nobody had turned a hair. Maybe Hoshi wasn't the only one to have learned something useful today.


End file.
